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Softball tourney helps girl bound for Ohio hospital

Middle school student RaeAnah Eidson is headed to Ohio in June for a medical treatment that she hopes will change her life.

But getting the 12-year-old Madison County girl there can be an expensive undertaking for her family.

On June 2, a softball tournament benefit “Hoping for RaeAnah” will take place at Mize Park in Danielsville to raise money to help the family with the trip to a hospital in Cincinnati. The fee is $150 for each team for the tournament that could run the length of the day depending on the number of teams that sign up by the Monday deadline.

Anyone wanting information or to sign up should contact Bryson Powell of Hull at (706) 424-8450 or RaeAnah’s mother, Marcia Colvin, at (706) 436-5227.

RaeAnah was born with the rare condition of having two aortas, but recently doctors discovered there is a mass obstructing her trachea causing breathing difficulties. After treatments over the years at numerous hospitals, including Egleston Children’s Hospital and Miami’s Children’s Hospital, she is scheduled to have surgery in June by what her mother said are the “best airway doctors in the world.”

“The hot weather is pretty rough on her so we have to keep her cool,” her mother said Thursday. “She enjoys going on the front porch, but with the heat as bad as it is, she has to keep the oxygen close.”

“We’re anxious to go to Cincinnati. We want to know what is going on,” she said.

The softball tournament is a way to help with expenses, along with help raised through her church in Colbert.

Powell, who with his friends, are organizing the tournament, said his father once hosted a tournament to help a friend who had cancer.

Powell enjoys the sport and will participate.

“I’ll play with the team I travel the state with,” he said. “I play anywhere from three to five days week.”